


ADDRESSES DELIVERED 

Before the 

Society of Colonial Wars 

IN THE 

STATE OF IOWA, 



FIRST SERIES. 



MDcecc. 



KING WILLIAM^S WAR 

By the 

Revd. William Salter D. D. 



COLONIAL DAYS OF IOWA 

By 
Judson Keith Deming Esq. 



FALL OF LOUISBURG 

By the 

Revd. Samuel Roosevelt Johnson Hoyt D. D. 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS 

On the Occasion of the Death of the 

Rt, Revd. William Stevens Perry D, D,, L. L. D. 

By 

Judson Keith Deming Esq. 

'2(r 



\^M^y.^ 






In r^&ctt. 






V 



%^ 



AMERICAN COLONIAL HISTORY TWO 
HUNDRED YEARS AGO. 



KING WILLIAM'S WAR. 



A DISCOURSE DELIVERED BEFORE THE SOCIETY OF COLONIAL WARS IN 

THE STATE OF IOWA, AT DUBUQUE, JUNE SEVENTEENTH, 

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND NINETY SEVEN. 



n^HE civilization of the world has been largely 
carried forward by colonies that have gone 
from more enlightened to less enlightened or to 
newly discovered lands. 

At the dawn of history the Phoenicians were 
the disseminators of letters and civiHzation by 
the colonies they planted upon the shores of the 
Mediteranean, and by the commerce and trade 
and the alphabet they carried with them. Hence 
sprang up philosophy and art in Greece, and law 
and jurisprudence in Italy. In turn, Greece and 
Rome carried civilization to other lands. They 
extended their dominion by force of arms, but by 
colonies and provincial establishments they knit 
distant peoples together in the exchanges of com- 



2 Two Hundred Years Ago. 

merce; they softened manners; they ameliorated 
the world. The arts and the language of Greece 
followed the sword of Alexander. The laws of 
Rome followed the conquests of Caesar. The lar- 
gest and fairest city on the Rhine by its name 
(Coin) recalls the fact that it was originally a 
Roman colony. 

Upon the discovery of America, every portion 
of the continent fell under European domination. 
For three centuries the history of America is an 
elongation of European history, and in no por- 
tion indeiDcndent of it until 1776. Colonies from 
the Old World took possession of the New. In 
the course of two centuries, large portions of 
America were known as "New Spain," or ''New 
France;" a little portion as "New England." 
The former names have disappeared; the latter 
remains; and may remain in times afar. 

The discovery of the different parts of the 
continent that form the United States was made 
by different nations, by Spain, England, France, 
Holland and Russia; and it covered a period of 
two centuries and a half, from the first sight of 
Florida by Americus Vespucius in 1497 to the 
discovery of Alaska by Vitus Bering in 1741. As 
this vast region came to the knowledge of succes- 
sive generations, the natives in everj^ part were 



Two Hundred Years Ago. 3 

found to be roving and barbarous tribes, at war 
with one another, and, while for a time friendly 
to the white people, sooner or later resisting their 
progress, and making war upon them with the 
single exception of William Penn's colony upon 
the Delaware, the neighboring Indians just be- 
fore the planting of that colony having been 
badly worsted in their wars with other tribes. 

In America for one hundred years after its 
discovery, Spain was the dominant power, and 
held almost exclusive possession. There came a 
change at the beginning of the seventeenth cen- 
tury. Then France and England began to plant 
colonies, and a struggle arose between them. 
The struggle lasted one hundred and sixty j^ears. 
Samuel Champlain was upon the Saint Lawrence 
at the same time Captain John Smith sailed up 
the James river and made the first settlement in 
Virginia. Five years before the Pilgrims set foot 
upon Plymouth Rock, Champlain had set foot 
upon the shores of Lake Huron. When John En- 
dicott, Francis Higginson, John Winthrop, John 
Mason and Ferdinando Gorges were founding 
settlements at Salem, Boston and upon ''the 
Long reach of the Piscataqua," Cardinal Riche- 
lieu, Champlain, and opulent merchants of Paris 
organized a "Company of One Hundred Asso- 



4 7^ wo Hundred Years Ago. 

dates," for the settlement of Canada; and at the 
same time a company of Jesuit Fathers landed 
at Quebec. 

The earliest wars were life-and-death strug- 
gles for existence. The red men regarded the 
white people as intruders, as having no right up- 
on the soil but bj^ sufferance, and, A^^hen jeal- 
ousies and misunderstandings arose, he sought 
nothing less than their extermination. The same 
difficulties and misfortunes were encountered in 
all the colonies, and in Canada bj^ the French, as 
in Virginia and Massachusetts by the English, 
and in New York b^^ the Dutch. Upon landing 
in Canada, Champlain found the Algonquins and 
Hurons at war with the Iroquois, and it wsls as 
he went on the war-path with the former against 
the later, that he first saw the peaceful lake that 
perpetuates his name. In the scattered villages 
upon the banks of James river in Virginia, three 
hundred and fortj^-seven persons, men, women 
and children, were killed on a single day, (March 
22, 1622). In a second massacre, twenty-two 
3'ears latter, there v^^ere three hundred victims. 
The wars of the Iroquois and Hurons over- 
whelmed the early Jesuit missions in Canada 
with indescribable horrors of torture and mas- 
sacre. The Mohawks were long the terror of 



Two Hundred Years Ago. 5 

New York before they buried the tomahawk. 
Massachusetts lost nearly a thousand of her sons, 
the flower of the colony, in King Philip's war; 
six hundred houses were burnt; scores of women 
and children were slain. The ravages of that 
war extended to the Piscataqua and the Kenne- 
bec, where two hundred and sixty persons were 
killed by the Indians or carried captive. In 1689 
the Iroquois burnt LaChine, just above Mon- 
treal, and massacred two hundred people. 

So unsparing of all Europeans were the In- 
dians, that it was at one time proposed that the 
French and the English should join in common 
measures for mutual protection against them. 
But the proposition miscarried, and afterwards, 
as the French in Canada and the English colon- 
ies became embroiled in the wars of Europe, the 
savages were eager to take part in every fray, 
and could not be restrained. For the last half 
of the struggle to which I have referred, the co- 
lonial wars were French and Indian wars. They 
were known among our fathers mostly bynames 
from over the sea, as King William's War (1688- 
97), Queen Anne's War (1704-13), King George's 
War, George II, (1744-8), and the Seven Years' 
War (1756-63), in which France lost Canada. 

Two hundred years ago, Europe was in hos- 



6 Two Hundred Years Ago. 

tile camps. In a perspective of that time from 
this distance two names are seen at the head of 
the conflict on their respective sides, Louis XIV 
of France and William III of England. They 
were representative men, each of force and weight, 
but opposite in character, of different ideas, sen- 
timents, manners, and habits, antagonistic in 
their views of what constitutes a State, of what 
pleases God, of what ennobles life. In their day 
those two men had as much to do in shaping the 
destiny of nations as perhaps any two men have 
had in any period of history. 

At the time referred to 1697, Louis XIY 
had been upon the throne of France forty-six 
years from his fourteenth year. Since Char- 
lemagne no monarch in Europe had gained equal 
renown or power. Of statelj^ person and royal 
air, he called to mind the pride, the magnificence, 
the absolutism of the Caesars. In pomp and pa- 
geantrj^ in gorgeous retinues, in embellishments 
of art, in dazzling carousals, in extravagant and 
wanton luxury, his court surpassed every other 
in the annals of Europe. It rivalled the fabled 
glare and glory of Babylon and Persia. It had 
also the support and blandishment of the philoso- 
phers, poets, and wits of the time, men of renown, 
and of the bishops and clergy of the realm. France 



Two Hundred Years Asro 



^ 



was then the wealthiest country- in Europe, and 
the king aggrandized that w^ealth to himself. — 
"EYer3rthing in our dominion belongs to us,'^ 
was his saying. He maintained the largest stand- 
ing army that had been seen in Europe for a 
thousand years, and acted as sovereign of the 
continent. To sustain his pride and pomp he laid 
heavy taxes upon the French people, but his ex- 
penditures, whether in war or peace, exceeded 
his revenues, and at his death he left an immense 
debt w^hich a famous scheme, mortgaging the 
w^calth of the Indies and the Mississippi, was de- 
vised to liquidate. It was known as the South 
Sea Bubble. 

Of imperious disposition Louis XIV acknowl- 
edged no rule but his own will. He scorned 
obeisance to any other authority. "I am the 
State," was his motto. He ground opposition 
to the dust. He revoked the Edict of Nantes 
that had given protection to protestants, and 
ran them down with the Dragonnades, or drove 
them from France. Of his religion he made a 
show, but it was a matter of pretence and inter- 
est, and never interfered with his vices, but was 
such a sanctimonious combination of self asser- 
tion with infamous principles as led a leader of 
opinion in the next centurj^ to say, ^'Ecrasez U 



8 Two Hundred Years Ago. 

In fame. ^^ By force of arms or by menace and 
artifice, he intimidated surrounding nations. He 
seized the free city of Strasbourg on the Rhine. 
He joined hands with the Sultan, and confederated 
with Mahometans against christians to avenge 
himself upon Austria. When the amiable Fenelon 
chided the king's pride, he sent him into disgrace. 
When Innocent XI resisted his aggression and 
abuse, the king was so contumacious and obsti- 
nate that the Pope supported the coalition which 
Catholic and Protestant princes formed against 
him, headed by the Prince of Orange. So long 
as the Stuarts held the throne of England, Louis 
XIV dominated the policy of that country in his 
interest. He made Charles II and James II his 
pensioners and vassals that they might over-ride 
the parliament and people of England. He made 
Charles II believe that it were better for him to 
be '* viceroy of the Grand Monarch than slave to 
five hundred of his insolent subjects," the English 
Parliament. After the death of Charles II, he 
offered assistance to keep James lion the throne, 
when his subjects were muttering against him; 
and later, when James fled from England, he re- 
ceived him at his court with royal pageantry, and 
paid him stipends. Upon the accession of Wil- 
liam, Prince of Orange, to the throne, by election 



Two Hundred Years Ago. 9 

of Parliament, and upon his coronation in West- 
minster Abbey, Louis XIV denounced him as a 
usurper, and declared war against England. 

Two hundred years ago (1697,) William III 
was in the ninth j'-ear of his reign. He had de- 
fended himself against the Grand Monarch, and 
now that the war was drawing to a close, and 
negotiations for peace were in progress he was 
still defiant, and said * 'that the only way of treat- 
ing with France is with our swords in our hands. ' ' 
Finally, a treaty of peace was signed on the 11th 
of September, 1697. 

Of the European complications of that war 
it is not my province to speak, except that King 
William's part as the mortal enemy of Louis XIV 
saved not only England, but other nations as 
well, from falling under an arbitrary despotism. 
In fact it was chiefly in view of bringing the help 
and resources of England to break down that 
despotism, that the Prince of Orange left his na- 
tive and beloved Holland and took the English 
throne. His heart remained all his days in Hol- 
land, the land of his great ancestor, William the 
Silent. The enterprise heundertook,vSays Macau- 
lay, **was the most arduous and important in 
the history of modern Europe." "It saved Eu- 
rope from Slavery," is the verdict of adispassion- 



10 Tv[''o Hundred Years Ago. 

ate French statesman and historian in this cen- 
tury (Guizot). 

To then far-away America King William's 
War was of ominous and absorbing interest, as 
it involved the success of our fathers' experiment 
in planting Liberty upon the shores of the new 
world, and as it involved the fate of the struggle 
to which I have referred for the possession of the 
continent. The war, however, was not generally 
known as an American war, or as King William's 
War. In Europe it was called the "Grand Alli- 
ance," or "the Coalition," because different na- 
tions were confederate against Louis XIV. In 
England it was known as the "Revolution;" in 
France and German}^ as the "War of the Palati- 
nate," because the French troops over-run and 
devoured that Country; in Canada as "Fronte- 
nac'swar," because Frontenac carried it on with 
resolute and remorseless vigor against the colon- 
ies. To the Englivsh colonies it was "King Wil- 
liam's war," because to them King William was 
the head and front of the movement, and because 
he was the advocate and defender of that free 
sjDirit by which they had been animated from the 
beginning, for which the3^ had braved the ocean 
and the wilderness. In the colonies they had en- 
joyed their own institutions of government, had 



Tjvo Hundred Years Ago. 11 

made their own laws, and chosen their own 
officers. They had subdued the soil, and had 
maintained themselves against the savages with- 
out help from abroad. The mother country had 
looked upon them askance or treated them with 
neglect. Charles II and James II had overridden 
their charters, and imposed unworthy and arbi- 
trary men as commissioners and governors. Con- 
necticut had refused to give up its charter and 
hid it in the hollow of an oak. Upon hearing of 
the landing of the Prince of Orange in England, 
Massachusetts, weary of the misrule of Sir Ed- 
mund Andros, rose in insurrection against the 
ro3"al governor, put him in arrest, and reinstated 
a former governor, then in his eighty-fifth year, 
the last survivor of the founders of the colony. 
A zealot for James II, Andros had seemed to act 
in collusion with Louis XIV against the liberties 
of Englishmen. His government was denounced 
at the time as a "French Government," and it 
became "an abomination to posterity," as was 
foretold of it at the time. 

Nowhere was the accession of William III re- 
ceived with greater ]oj than in the colonies. It 
acknowledged their rights and liberties, and put 
an end to the tj^ranny of Andros and the Stuarts. 
There was never before such rejoicing in America. 



12 Two Hundred Years Affo. 

It was more hearty and universal than in Eng- 
land, where James had many adherents, where 
a reactionary spirit soon broke out, and w^hereit 
could hardly be forgiven William that he was a 
Dutchman. New England had no such prejudice, 
for Holland had given shelter and home to the 
Pilgrims when exiled from their native land, and 
the Dutch people were the original founders of 
the colony of New York. 

To Louis XIV the establishment of his rule 
and power in America was an object of exceeding 
interest and desire. He set his heart inordinately 
upon it. He did more to make a New France in 
America than all the kings of England ever did 
for the establishment or support of the English 
colonies. It was in his reign that the valley of 
the Mississippi was discovered, and La Salle had 
named the vast region Louisiana in his honor. 
Canada and Louisiana were found to be inter- 
laced and interlocked. Nature seemed to have 
marked both regions for one countrj-. At several 
points the portage between the waters that flow 
to the St. Lawrence and those that flow to the 
Mississippi is hardly a stone's throw, and in 
seasons of flood those waters intermingle. Could 
Louis XIY have conquered the English colonies 
on the Atlantic, the whole continent would have 



Two Hundred Years Ago. 13 

been his. New England would have been blotted 
from the map, the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi 
and the Atlantic slope would have all alike be- 
come New France. 

Among the friends and courtiers of Louis 
XIV was Count Frontenac, Governor of Canada 
at the time of the discover}^ of the Mississippi, 
and appointed Governor a second time at the be- 
ginning of King William's war. He was an ar- 
dent sympathizer in the ambitious projects of the 
Grand Monarch, as also in his absolutist ideas 
and arbitrary measures. In ability, enterprise, 
and vigor of character, he was superior to any 
other public man that either France or England 
sent over to America. He was eager to do his 
part against the subjects of King William in the 
English colonies, and more than any one else he 
threatened and endangered the existence of the 
colonies. Upon his departure from France for 
his second term of command, Louis ordered him 
to conquer New York, the blow to be struck at 
once, the English to be taken by surprise. With 
a thousand regulars and six hundred Canadian 
militia he was to march from Lake Champlain 
to the Hudson, capture Albany, seize all boats, 
and descend to the mouth of the river, where two 
ships of war were to join in the capture of New 



14 Two Hundred Years As-o. 



■ft 



York, then containing about two hundred houses 
and four hundred fighting men. All lands in the 
colony, except those of Catholics, were to be 
granted to the French officers and soldiers. The 
other inhabitants were to be driven off, the near- 
est settlements of New England to be destroyed 
and those more remote to be laid under contri- 
bution. 

That scheme failed. Frontenax found on reach- 
ing Quebec that the Iroquois had visited his own 
province with a frightful devastation, that they 
had massacred two hundred of his people, as al- 
ready stated, in a village close to Montreal. Not 
until mid-winter was he able to assume the offen- 
sive, when he sent out war-parties of French and 
Indians who burnt Schenectad3', and spread dis- 
may and death among the frontier towns of New 
Hampshire and Maine. 

At this time Major Charles Frost was 
commmander of the military forces of Maine. 
He had come in his earty childhood, when three 
or four years old, with his parents from the west 
of England, and had grown up with the country 
among the hard^' adventurers of the Piscataqua. 
Of those people some hewed the forests, cleared 
the land, and turned the wilderness into fruitful 
fields; some followed the fishing industry; others 



Two Hundred Years Ago. 15 

built ships and engaged in commerce and trade. 
There was work for all, and there were willing 
hands. A happy and prosperous condition of 
things existed. There is no happier work than 
opening up a new country. The long reaches of 
the Piscataqua and the indented coast of Maine, 
became *'on many accounts the most charming 
part of New England," as was said of it at the 
time (Magnalia II, 659.) For forty years the set- 
tlers lived amicably w^ith the Indians of the region 
until they were incited in King Philip's war to 
take part in that conspiracy for the extermina- 
tion of the English people. 

King William's w^ar was anticipated in Amer- 
ica before it was formally declared in Europe. 
The French in Canada and their Indian allies, 
under the inspiration of the Jesuit Fathers, 
snufCed the battle from afar, and entered upon 
the fray the summer before. 

In the first year of King William, soon after 
the news of his coronation had crossed the ocean, 
and had been celebrated in Boston with such pa- 
geantry as was never known there before. Major 
Waldron was murdered by the Indians, hy stealth, 
and with cruel torture, in his own house. Upon 
him, after thirteen j^ears, the savages wreaked 
their full measure of revenge. At the same time 



16 Two Hundred Years Ago. 

they killed or carried captive fifty-two other 
persons. 

Two months after the death of Major Wal- 
dron, Charles Frost, who had lost favor and 
standing under Governor Andros, was appointed 
Major of the military forces of Maine. The In- 
dians and French -were now spreading desolation 
far and near. Many families abandoned their 
homes. — York, Wells, Portland, Salmon Falls, 
and Durham suffered the extreme horrors of sav- 
age warfare. We spare you any grev^some de- 
tails. The history is of authentic record by 
Belknap and W^illiamson the historians of New- 
Hampshire and Alaine, and b^' Bancroft, Palfrey, 
Parkman and other standard authors. Belknap 
writing more than a century ago from his home 
in the very spot where some of those atrocities 
had occured, took pains to compare the published 
narratives and public records with old manu- 
scripts and verbal traditions of the sufferers and 
their descendants. He said, "The particular in- 
cidents may be tedious to strangers, but they 
will be read with avidity by the posteritj^ of 
those whose misfortunes and bravery were so 
conspicuous," 

At the end of this war the number of English- 
men killed on the frontier towns of Maine and 



Two Hundred Years Ago. 17 

New Hampshire was more than seven hundred 
and two hundred and fifty carried captive many 
never to return. 

Nor, while the French were the most aggres- 
sive, was the war only a defensive one on the 
part of the English colonies. They captured 
Acadia, then consisting of the eastern part of 
Maine and of Nova Scotia, and they planned to 
conquer Canada. Massachusetts fitted out a 
fleet against Quebec, with which New York was 
to join a land force. The latter failed, but the 
fleet reached Quebec, and in the name of King 
William demanded its surrender, oifering terms 
of mercy while declaring that the French and In- 
dian outrages upon New England might justly 
prompt to a severe revenge. Frontenac defiantly 
replied that he did not recognize King William, 
that the New England people were heretics, and 
traitors to their lawful king, James II, that they 
had taken up with a usurper, and made a revo- 
lution, but for which New England and France 
would be all one. 

A siege was begun, but after reverses, and 
the small pox breaking out in the fleet, the enter- 
prise was abandoned, and as the fleet sailed 
away Quebec was jubilant, and kindled a great 
bonfire in honor of Frontenac. While Boston 



18 Two Hundred Years Ago. 

was in humiliation and chagrin with the return 
of the fleet, the news went over the ocean, and 
elated Louis XIV, who caused a medal to be 
struck, with the inscription: 

FRANCIA IN NOVO ORBE VICTRIX 

KEBECA LIBERATA 

MDCXC. 

Frontenac wrote to Louis XIV: "The King 
has triumphed by land and by sea. Now let him 
crush the Parliamentarians of Boston and the 
English of New York, and secure the whole sea 
coast with the fisheries of the Grand Bank." 

Later, the colonies were dismayed by rumor 
that a French fleet was hovering along the coast, 
"intending a destroying visit "upon New York and 
Boston. The rumor had foundation, for in the 
spring of 1697 a powerful squadron was under 
orders to proceed to the mouth of the Penobscot, 
there to be joined by Indian warriors and fif- 
teen hundred Canadian troops under Front- 
enac, the whole force to fall upon Boston. They 
had an exact knowledge of the town, with a 
map of the harbor, and had prepared a plan of 
attack. After Boston was taken, the land forces, 
French and Indian, were to march on Salem, and 
thence to the Piscataqua, the ships proceeding 



Two Hundred Years Ago. 19 

along the coast. The towns were to be destroyed, 
a portion of the plunder to be divided among the 
officers and men, the rest to be stowed in ships for 
transportation to France. Frontenac collected 
men, canoes, and supplies for the march across 
the wilderness of Canada and Maine to the Pen- 
obscot. But the fleet met with detention and 
contrary winds, and the enterprise came to 
naught. 

Meanwhile wary and prowling bands of In- 
dians continued to infest the settlements. They 
never fought in the open, but hid in thickets or 
behind logs or rocks, and were rarely seen before 
they did execution. 

On the 15th of March, 1697, the Indian prow- 
lers seized a young mother in Haverhill, Mass., 
burnt her home, dashed her babe against a tree, 
and carried her into captivity. While they slept 
one night on an island in the Merrimac, she rose 
upon her captors in their slumbers, tomahawked 
them with quick and vigorous blows, and made 
good her escape down the river in a canoe to her 
people. This is the story of Hannah Dustin, 
whose descendants are spread over the continent. 
I found one of them more than half a century ago 
among the hardy pioneers of Iowa. 

On the 10th of June, 1697, a party of Indians 



20 Two Hundred Years Ago. 

were discovered near Exeter, N. H., lying in am- 
bush, by some women and children who had 
gone into the woods to pick strawberries. An 
alarm was given, and the Indians fled after kill- 
ing one person and taking another captive. 

On the 4th of July following, then as this 
year the Lord's Day, Major Frost and two 
others with him fell victims to the merciless sav- 
age. It was twenty years since the stratagem 
hj which so many Indians had been captured at 
the close of King Philip's war, and eight years 
since the Indians had killed Major Waldron. 
They now wreaked their full measure of revenge 
in killing Major Frost. He was in his sixtj^-iifth 
year. He had been active all his life in military 
service until he was sixty years of age, when he 
was again chosen one of the Governor's Council 
1693. By his ceaseless vigilance, while other 
towns were deserted, or burned, and their inhabi- 
tants massacred, this immediate region of the 
frontier upon the east bank of the Piscataqua 
had been preserv^ed for the most part from sav- 
age incursions. To the last he continued to be 
employed in a general superintendence of military 
movements. 

Faithful in frequenting public worship, ac- 
cording to the law and custom of the time, and 



Two Hundred Years Asro. 21 



is' 



as a magistrate enforcing that law, he attended 
pubHc worship on the day mentioned, and it was 
afterwards remembered that he expressed a 
strong desire to do so that Sabbath morning. 
On returning home towards evening, a part of 
his family and some neighbors with him were 
fired upon by savages who lay in ambush at Am- 
bush Rock. Some of the party in which were his 
two sons (Charles and John) escaped, but Major 
Frost and two others (Mrs. Heard and Dennis 
Downing) were killed, and Mr. Heard wounded. 
Thus ended the life of a brave and resolute 
man two hundred years ago who did his part 
to open the wilderness to civilization, to save 
the infant settlements from utter extinction, and 
secure to after times the immunities and blessings 
that make the homes upon the Piscataqua a- 
mong the happiest and most favored in the 
world. It was through such services and sacri- 
fices that our ancestors maintained their foot- 
hold upon the continent, and that in the course 
of time a nation arose, founded not upon arbit- 
rary and irresponsible power, not upon bigotry 
and persecution, as represented by the Grand 
Monarch of France, but upon liberty and justice 
and the toleration of religious differences, as rep- 
resented by William III. 



22 Two Hundred Years Ago. 

The Ten Years of King William's War were 
called Dccennium Li/ctnosu/72, a Mournful Decade, 
by an annalist of the period. He made a record 
of them ''while the}^ were fresh and new%" and 
put a detailed account of the miseries and sufter- 
ings and cruelties into his famous Magnalia 
Christi Americana, ere: the^^ should be "lost in ob- 
livion." That history closes with an improve- 
ment of the ''Great Calamities of a War with 
Indian-Salvages" in a sermon at Boston Lecture, 
July 27, 1698. The preacher said that in the 
most charming part of New England, where men 
had sown fields along the shore for a hundred 
miles together, the fruitful land had been turned 
into barrenness, and a cluster of towns had been 
diminished and brought low through oppression, 
affliction and sorrow. He added that no part of 
the English had been more preyed upon at sea 
during these Ten Years than that which had 
gone out of New England. He referred to Major 
Waldron and Major Frost as "two of our mag- 
istrates treacherously and barbarously killed by 
the Indian murderers," and he honors William 
III as "the greatest monarch that ever sat on 
the British throne." 

A few months after that Lecture was delivered 
in Boston, the foremost enemy of the English 



Two Hundred Years Ago. 23 

Colonies, Frontenac, died in Canada. He had 
been the chief agent in building up New France, 
and in extending over the vast region which he 
had aided to discover the authority and name 
of Louis XIY. 

In the first half of the next century the stan- 
dards of French authority were set up upon the 
Great Lakes, at Detroit, Sault St. Marie, Macki- 
naw, and Green Bay, and over the Mississippi 
Valley at Fort Du Quesne, Vincennes, Prairie du 
Chien, Kaskaskia, and New Orleans. But finally 
those standards and the whole region (except 
New Orleans and the territory west of the Miss- 
issippi which fell to Spain) succumbed to British 
rule with the fall of Canada on the Heights of 
Abraham in 1759. 

Meanwhile, though the EngHsh Colonies had 
been saved from falling into the hands of Louis 
XIV, other wars followed, and in the reverse of 
history it came about that the tables were com- 
pletely turned. The subsequent royal govern- 
ments of England proved oppressive to the colon- 
ies, and France, their dread and terror in the 
period under review, became seventy-five years 
later their friend and helper against a British 
King who was "unfit to be the ruler of a free 
people." And as in the course of events the 



24 Two Hundred Years Ag^o. 

United States of America took a separate and 
equal place among the powers of the earth, 
France and Holland were first and foremost to 
acknowledge the independence and welcome them 
into the family of nations. 

The arbitrary rule of Louis XIV went down 
in ignominy and shame in his own country in the 
terror and retribution of the French Revolution 
at the close of the eighteenth century, — while the 
ideas and principles of William III have become 
more and more ascendant in the counsels of ad- 
vancing civilization. 

King William was the herald of the new age 
that discredits prerogative and "divine right," 
whether in church or state, and makes authority 
and government responsible and amenable to 
the Eternal Justice and to the public conscience 
and the deliberate judgment of mankind. He 
anticipated that entire freedom of religion 
which is the distinctive principle of our American 
national life. A Protestant by original convic- 
tion, and the head of a Protestant kingdom, he 
favored the abolition of religious tests, so that 
any Protestant, whether in the national church 
or not, might be admitted to public employment. 
He was a latitudinarian. He owned different 
creeds and different forms of church government, 



Two Hundred Years Ago. 25 

while he preferred his own. It was grateful to 
him — England had never such a day before or 
since — when upon his arrival in London all re- 
ligious parties joined to do him honor, and emi- 
nent nonconformist divines marched in a proces- 
sion headed by the bishop of London. He said 
he should like the Church of England better if its 
rites reminded him less of the rites of the Church 
of Rome, and at the same time he was so con- 
siderate of the Church of Rome that Protestant 
zealots of the time put his charity towards Cath- 
olics to his disadvantage and reproach. It is the 
verdict of Hallam's Constitutional History of 
England, that he was "the most magnanimous 
and heroic character of that age. Though not 
exempt from errors, it is to his superiority over 
all her own natives that England is indebted for 
the preservation of her honor and liberty when 
the Commonwealth was never so close to ship- 
wreck, and in danger of becoming a province of 
France. It must ever be an honor to the English 
crown that it was worn by him." 

Though our ancestors suffered so severely in 
the Ten Years' War, they were saved from falling 
a prey utterly to the spoiler. They appreciated 
the character and honored the name of King 
William. The second college in the colonies was 



26 Two Hundred Years As'o. 



■A 



the College of William and Mary in Virginia. 
The name William and Mary was given to the 
old castle at the mouth of Piscataqua, the King- 
having made a present of some great guns which 
w^evQ mounted there. The fort retained the name 
for more than a century. Appropriately on that 
very spot, which commemorated the English 
Revolution of 1688, occured the first overt act of 
the American Revolution nearl^^ a century later 
in the capture (Dec. 13-15, 1774) of the powder 
and arms that were stored there, which were put 
to use the next j^ear by the patriots at Lexing- 
ton and Bunker Hill. A leading public man of 
two hundred ^''ears ago, a President of Harvard 
College, said that if New England could have her 
ancient rights and privileges, she would make 
William HI * 'the emperor of America." And so 
for substance and in moral effect it has come 
about. His principles have dominated in Amer- 
ica even more than in England, They have perme- 
ated our national character. We have moved on 
upon the lines of progress indicated by King 
William. The Declaration of Right upon which 
he took the throne of England in 1689 proceeded 
upon the same principles as our Declaration of 
Independence in 1776; and without the former 
the latter had never been. And those principles 



Two Hundred Years A£>o. 27 



■6' 



assure the further improYement of the world and 
better laws and better institutions of govern- 
ment, as the public weal may require in the midst 
of an advancing civilization and under new con- 
ditions of human societ3^ 

After two hundred years we behold the prin- 
ciples of liberty and constitutional government 
for which King William stood, as against the 
arbitrary principles for v^^hich Louis XIV stood, 
incorporated into the organic life of the forty-five 
States of the American Union, that have sprung 
from the feeble colonies upon the Atlantic, and 
that nov^ stretch across the continent to the 
Pacific. 

"What change! through pathless wilds no more 
The fierce and naked savage roams; 
Sweet prcvise along the cultured shore 

Breaks from ten thousand happy homes." 

and the songs of Liberty arise from millions and 
millions of a free and happy people. 



COLONIAL DAYS OF IOWA. 



Address Delivered by Judson Keith Deming Before the 

Society of Colonial Wars, June 17th, 1898, 

in Dubuque, Iowa. 



npHE Colonial history of Iowa is an unwritten 
page. The field is, however, a rich one, 
and worthy the research of the studious histor- 
ian, and the pen of the most gifted narrator. 

All honor is due to those intrepid mariners 
who first braved the imaginary terrors of an un- 
known sea, and discovered this new world; all 
honor is due to those patient and determined 
colonists who first settled the barren shores, and 
dangerous woodlands of the eastern borders of 
this country; much honor has already been given 
to men of mediocre ability, and bigoted ideas, 
around whom the romance of colonial history 
has drawn a variegated robe of unheard of deeds 
of bravery, or phenomenal elements of character. 
We are all proud of our ancestors, partly because 
we have discovered that the}^ are ours, and part- 



30 Colonial Days of Iowa. 

ly to satisfy a craving for hero worship. But the 
history of the colonization of the Northwest, 
must be read with very different feelings. Neither 
pride of descent nor sympathy of kinship can 
aid us in a critical study of the men who braved 
perils far greater than the perils of the sea, 
pushed their way through trackless forests, far 
beyond all hope of succor in case of need; reckless 
of life; with little chance of personal gain; almost 
insane in their thirst for new discoveries, new 
lands, new scenes, the unknown, just beyond. 
Here and there we have glimpses of their adven- 
tures; we knoAv that Father Marquette in June 
1 673, leaving Mackinac with Joliet, crossed over 
to the Wisconsin River, down which they paddled 
to the Mississippi, and upon the bosom of that 
mighty stream floated along the shores and 
among the islands so familiar to us all; past this 
very spot, and so on to the latitude of the pre- 
sent State of Arkansas. A few years later in 
February, 1 680, Father Hennepin left Fort Cri- 
vecour, and, whatever lies he may have told 
about the hrst part of his journey, we know^ 
that he and his two companions must have 
looked upon the Iowa bluffs, as they paddled 
northward to the Wisconsin River, from which 
point their Sioux captors carried them on nearly 



Colonial Days of Iowa. 31 

to the source of the Great River. The general ac- 
counts of these journey ings are interesting, but 
how much we would enjoy a bright narrative 
of the incidents and events of each day— If only 
it had been a Pepys or a Sewall instead of those 
sober, serious-minded priests, whose zeal in their 
conquest of souls, made them oblivious to all 
else. The records of Joliet were lost overboard 
on his return up the Mississippi, and of those 
earliest explorers, little remains in the form of 
written records, except the papers of Marquette 
and Hennepin. During the period from Henne- 
pin to Julien Dubuque, white men explored the 
rivers of eastern Iowa, but they were traders or 
trappers or miners; many of them unable to write 
an account of their adventures, even if they were 
inclined to do so. It is possible that among the 
old commercial records of St. Louis might be 
found some information of these early inhabi- 
tants of Iowa, and undoubtedly the archives of 
Spain would reveal some of that government's 
transactions with these men, through reports of 
the governor of this province. The time is, per- 
haps, not far distant when some one will be 
found to devote time and brains and money in a 
search for these proofs of Iowa's early history, 
contemporaneous with the history of the English 



32 Colonial Days of Iowa. 

Colonies in America. 

It is two hundred and twenty five years ago 
to-day* that Marquette first saw the shores of 
Iowa, near the present citj^ of McGregor, and 
as far as written history has recorded, he was 
the first white man to reach this "Beautiful 
Land." Eight days later, on June 25th, 1673, he 
landed and explored a river, which tradition 
says, was the present Des Moines river. Noth- 
ing in his account, indicates where he landed 
previous to that date, and so, we must give to 
the vicinitj^ of Keokuk, the honor of the first 
landing of white men upon Iowa soil. 

To Julien Dubuque has been given the honor 
of being the first -white man to settle within the 
borders of the present State of Iowa, simply be- 
cause his settlement is the earliest of which we 
have any proof. The fact of his residence here, 
in 1788 was demonstrated through a careful 
search of early records in connection with a suit, 
brought against the city by heirs of a man named 
Chouteau, to v/hom Diibuque had transferred his 
interest in certain mines in this vicinity. It is un- 
necessary for me to give a resume of this case — 
it is given in full in the Reports of the United 

* Jvme 17, 1673. Vide Winsor's Nar. and Crit. Histor3' of Amer- 
ica. Vol. IV, page 178. 



Colonial Days of Iowa. 33 

States Supreme Court, Vol. 16, and is well known 
to every student of Iowa history, but this very 
case brought out the fact that, in 1796, the Span- 
ish governor. Baron de Carondelet, in passing 
upon Dubuque's petition for a recognition of his 
grant from the Indians, made his concession sub- 
ject to the rights of a certain Don Andrew Todd, 
who appears to have had a previous grant of the 
trading privileges of the section.* Who shall sa^'- 
that this same Todd or his agents, and perhaps 
some of their predecessors, had not already be- 
come dwellers in this country previous to Du- 
buque's settlement. Even as far back as Mar- 
quette's time, w^hen lie first visited the Indians 
on the river Des Moines, he found them wearing 
French cloths, w^hich they had probabh^ bought 
from traders in Illinois.* Nothing has been writ- 
ten of the history of white men in Iowa during 
that one-hundred A^ears, from Marquette to Du- 
buque, although manj" pages record, for the same 
period, the history of adjoining territorj^ in Wis- 
consin and Illinois. Is it not fair to suppose that 
Spanish and French priests and traders visited 
this part of the country from time to time, per- 
haps settled v/ithin our borders, and withdrew^ 

* Vide U. S. Supreme Court Reports. Vol. XVI. 

* Vide Parkman's Discovery of the Great West. Pa^e 57. 



34 Colonial Days of Iowa. 

leaving no trace behind them. 

The late Bishop Perry in his famous address 
delivered in this c\tj in 1896, declared that long 
before Marquette's time, in 1568, and later, Eng- 
lish sailors fleeing from the fanaticism of the 
Spanish priests of California, traversed this great 
interior region, and after suffering untold hard- 
ships, brought home to England wonderful tales 
of this terra incognita.* These claims are based 
upon the narratives of David Ingram, and his 
companion Job Hortop, and of course, are open 
to many doubts.** In this same address Bishop 
Perrj' hinted that before Dubuque's time, Spanish 
priests established a mission on this spot, and 
attempted to drive away men of other faiths. 
A few days before the bishop's death, I reminded 
him of this statement, and asked for proofs. He 
replied that his statement was based upon an 
assertion made by a prominent writer in this 
state, but that he was still searching for the 
proofs. Those of us who knew his zeal in such 
work, can only regret that his life was not spared 
to complete this and other labors in the cause of 
liistory and religion, to which he w^as devoted. 

* Vide Semi-Centennial, St. John's Parish, Dubuque. Rt. Rev. 
Wm. Stevens Perry. 

*• Vide Winsor's Nar. and Crit. History of America. Volume III. 
I<ajfC3 186 and 205. 



Colonial Days of Iowa. 35 

Strictly speaking, the Colonial history of Iowa, 
whatever it may be, ceased about the time of Du- 
buque's settlement in 1788. The United Colon- 
ies of America had become United States, and the 
time was not far distant when this great western 
colonj' of Spain was to be incorporated into the 
new nation, after a short interval of French 
possession. The war of the Revolution had been 
over for five years, and George Washington 
elected first president. It was just at this period 
when American colonial history was merging in- 
to the history of the new republic, that Julien 
Dubuque and his ten white companions, settled 
in this vicinity, and began to work the mines 
under a grant from the Fox Indians, dated at 
Prairie du Chien Sept. 22d, 1788. 

In giving a short sketch of the lives of these 
men during their residence here, I beg to acknowl- 
edge that the chief source of my information is an 
article by Hon. M. M. Ham, pubHshed in the 
Annals of Iowa.* 

For many years, the ambition of young 
French Canadians had been to lead the life of a 
coureur du bois, a voyageur, followers in the 
footsteps of Du Lhut, and the pioneers of the 
Hudson Bay Company. We can imagine that 

♦ Vide Annals of Iowa, 3rd Series. Volume II, No. 5, page 329. 



36 Colonial Days of Iowa. 

young Dubuque left his home in the district of 
Three Rivers, fired with the love of adventure, 
and the hope of winning a fortune in the far 
west. We find him at the age of 23, estalDhshed at 
Prairie du Chien,then a small military' post, and 
from there his expeditions in search of trade car- 
ried him frequently to this side of the river, prob- 
ably to the two Indian villages of the Fox tribe; 
one located on the Turkey river, and one at the 
mouth of the stream now called the Catfish creek, 
about two miles south of this cit\'. In this latter 
village he learned of the great lead mine dis- 
covered by the wife of Chief Peosta, and after 
winning, in some way, the affections of the chief 
and the whole tribe, he obtained that famous 
concession of mineral rights, which in after years, 
he and his aSvSignee, attempted to have construed 
as a grant of all the land between the Little Ma- 
quoketa river, and the stream nearTetede Mort. 
The Foxes were originally a Canadian tribe, and 
it is possible that some of the ties of their former 
homes msLj have inspired their affection for Du- 
buque; be that as it may, it is certain that, from 
the time of his settlement among them in 1788, 
to the date of his death in 1810, he was their true 
friend, to whom they looked for advice and help; 
and that he was worth v of their confidence, is 



Colonial Days of Iowa. 37 

attested by their life-long friendship. He with 
the ten Canadians, who accompanied him, lived 
with and among the Indians, and it is fair to 
suppose that some of them took Indian wives, 
although to this day nothing has been discovered 
to show what became of his ten companions and 
their descendants, if they left any, while of Du- 
buque all that remain, are his bones recently re- 
buried where the Indians interred him, upon the 
monumental bluff which overlooks his old home. 
His principal occupation was lead-mining, and 
twice a year he took his metal to St. Louis, and 
returned with the goods he received in payment. 
His smelting furnace was on the north side of 
the hill upon which he was buried, and its ruins 
were to be seen for many years by the old settlers 
of this city. In spite of his valuable grant from 
the Indians, he did not j^rofit by it, for he be- 
came involved with his chief creditor Chouteau, 
and mortgaged the land of which he supposed 
himself to be the owner. Lieut. Pike who visited 
him in 1805, and others who knew him, describe 
him as a small, wiry man, suave and polite and 
profuse in his demonstrations of courtesy and 
good breeding, but evasive in his responses to all 
inquiries, so that to this fact ma3^ be partly as- 
cribed the very indefinite information we have of 



38 Colonial Days of Iowa. 

his life and that of his companions. Pie died 
March 24th, 1810, and a few years thereafter, 
his Indian friends and his white companions dis- 
appeared from this part of the country, and not 
only their fate but their very names are lost to 
history. In 1828 the last of the old inhabitants 
of Dubuque's mines had left, and shortly after, in 
1830, the new settlement upon the present site 
of the city was established by a party of miners 
from Galena, 111. 

As Iowa was part of a foreign colony, long 
after the foundation of this republic, the preser- 
vation of its earh^ colonial history does not come 
w^ithin the scope of work of the Societ3^ of Colon- 
ial Wars, but, in default of any other field, what 
better duty can the low^a branch of the society 
assume, than that presented bj" the barren pages 
of the archives of this, — our beloved state. 

While this paper has not been written with 
the view of presenting an}^ new historical facts, 
it will have served its purpose, if it but inspires 
a more active interest in searching for the undis- 
covered colonial history of this countrj^, and a 
determination to preserve from oblivion the lit- 
tle that ma^^ be found. 



THE FALL OF LOUISBURG. 



Account Given June 17, 1899, at the General Court 
of the Society of Colonial Wars. 

ADDRESS MADE BY REV. SAMUEL R. J. HOYT, D. D. OF DAVENPORT. 



'"E stand here in bonds which are more than 
social and friendly. We stand where we 
must take notice of a past and regard a future 
in our country's history. A noble past imposes 
the obligation of a worthy future. The colonial 
wars are passed into history. The actors in 
those wars — our honored and revered ancestors 
— are long since gone back to God; their work 
accomplished, their career complete. To keep 
them in memory, to study their work, to draw 
lessons from their experience — these are the 
things imposed upon their descendants. 

If our societj^ means anything; if we have 
any worthj^ object which has associated us to- 
gether, it is this: to lay firm hold on that thrill- 
ing past, nor let the recollection thereof slip 
away from a treacherous memory and a soul 



40 The Fall of Louisburg. 

absorbed in its own concerns. 

To study the past of our country, in charac- 
ters, events, principles asserted, results attained, 
is a primary design in associations such as this. 
But our society is not solely dedicated to such 
study; it is not exclusively devoted to antiquar- 
ian research — it is a living organism; it has aims 
^'■hich direct it toward the future also. It seeks 
in reverent devotion to the past, a courage, a 
force, a wisdom applicable to present trials and 
to conflicts yet to come. It has a mission; it is 
fore-reaching and fore-casting; it has ambitions; 
it has a career. 

The two generations here tonight remind us 
that it has its old men and its 3^oung men. The 
young wrill soon grow old; the old will be here 
no more, but our children will take our places 
and carry on our work; and so w^e stand be- 
tween a venerable past and a hopeful, radiant 
future. We dream of noble men and noble deeds 
of the sleeping past. We see visions of good 
things to come, better things for our country 
and our heirs than the best of long ago or now. 

The crowded pages of the last year's history of 
our country assure us that the children of today 
have inherited the spirit of the fathers of j'ester- 
day; that if the grand American spirit had been 



The Fall of Louishurg. 41 

slumbering and had needed the rousing touch of 
this and other patriotic societies, that touch has 
not been in vain. Our opened eyes see now in 
the zenith that star of the first magnitude — 
loyalty to country and fatherland! 

There has been, perhaps, reason to fear that, 
deluged as we have been by the rapid growth 
of our country hj constant accessions from 
abroad, by immigrations from the other side of 
the seas, over-sloughed by a mass of foreign de- 
tritus, Americans being almost elbowed out by 
nev^comers, we were in danger of losing our 
identity, our traditions, our honor and our name. 
But that danger, if not entirely past, is not of 
alarming proportions today; and chiefly, I believe, 
by the revival of patriotism and love of country, 
by means of the assertion of loyalt^^ to American 
ideas, principles and spirit, kindled into life by 
our own and kindred patriotic societies, and 
needing only the call to arms against a foreign 
foe, to be seen bursting into all-consuming flames! 

The spirit of patriotism needs to be fed upon 
convictions of a righteous government and cause. 
The noblest freedom of a nation must always be 
won bj^ adherence to truth. It was such a con- 
viction that animated Puritan and Cavalier alike 
in our colonial days. The stern Puritan of New^ 



42 The Fall of Louishurg. 

England and the hard^'- Cavalier of Virginia were 
alikeconfidentof this— that God had created man 
to be free and independent— and they have left the 
stamp of liberty and righteousness upon our 
institutions, and when the test was given their 
sons of today, it was found, in a way that 
charmed the w^orld, that the men and the youth 
of this generation have not lost the heroic sense 
out of which came the great deeds of colonial 
days and revolutionary- times. 

The spirit of heroism is contagious, and ho-w 
has it spread throughout our land! Its sympa- 
thies are bej-ond all national bounds and reach 
out to every place \vhere freedom is fighting 
against oppression. Our nation, though young 
among the nations of the world, has done much 
to advance civilization. We have, it is true, no 
old battlefields or ancient ruins covered with ivy 
and rich with old memories and traditions; but 
we have the tales of our forefathers— those hardy 
old builders— as the}' were lajdng the foundations 
of our cotmtry's greatness, with the hoe of in- 
dustr}^ in one hand and the gun of self-defense in 
the other; we have the record of their constant 
watchfulness, the frequent skirmish, the awful 
battle against great odds with the treacherous 
savage; and we have Louisburg and Lake George 



The Fall of Louisburg. 43 

and Quebec; we have Lexington and Bunker Hill, 
and Yorktown; we have Gettysburg and Appo- 
mattox; we have Manila and Santiago — each 
bearing a message from the past to the future 
— a message of courage, of patriotism, of hope 
and of the triumph of justice and right! The 
patriotic struggle of a people for enlarged polit- 
ical freedom, the self-sacrificing heroism mani- 
fested in resisting the encroachments of tyranny 
or in maintaning their rights and liberty, not 
only excite our admiration, but become patriotic 
incentives to future generations. 

Potent events in the history of a people, like 
the lives of truly great and good men, never 
cease to exert their influence upon succeeding 
generations. 

Among the significant and living events in 
our history, the one we celebrate today, while 
not perhaps among the most sublime in itself, 
was yet far-reaching in its consequences. It was 
one of the important factors in the forming of 
our independent government, and it was a great 
impulse to patriotism and national courage. 

Cape Breton was discovered by Cabot. In 
1629 James Stewart settled a small colony" on 
the east side of the island. He was soon after 
taken prisoner, with all his party, by Captain 



44 The Fall of Louisburg. 

Daniell of the French company, who erected a 
fort at what is now called St. Anne's harbor. 
By the peace of St. Germain in 1632, Cape Bret- 
on was formally assigned to the French. When, 
by the treaty of Utrecht (1713), the French were 
deprived of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland they 
were still left in possession of Cape Breton and 
their right to erect fortifications for its protec- 
tion was formally acknowledged. The French 
accordingly transferred the inhabitants of Plai- 
sance in Newfoundland to w^hat was soon called 
Louisburg, which became the capital of Cape 
Breton and a large and flourishing town. 

I need not remind you of the almost inces- 
sant warfare waged against the New England 
colonists bj^ the Indians and by the French, and 
by those forces combined. The attempts to main- 
tain peace with the Indians were finalh' success- 
ful throughout a number of years. The most 
happy expedient, (which later worked to their 
detriment, ) adopted by the EngHsh for that pur- 
pose, was the establishing of trading houses 
where goods were furnished b3^ the government 
to be exchanged for furs which the Indians 
brought to them. This had the effect of concili- 
atingthe Indians and stimulating their industrj^, 
and so was a mutual service to the colonist 



The Fall of Louishurg. 45 

and Indian. 

In the course of time, however, the Indians 
became restive and their native traits began to 
assert themselves. Their intercourse with the 
whites for trading purposes created first a kind 
of intimacy and then began to aw^aken reminis- 
cences of former attacks and cruelties. Thty be- 
gan first to refer in boastful terms to their feats 
and the tortures they had inflicted upon the 
whites; next they began to threaten to come 
again Avith warwhoop and tomahawk; then in- 
dividual acts of violence took place near the 
trading posts, and soon it was suspected the 
French in Canada were whispering possible hostil- 
ities against the English, and it became very evi- 
dent that the Indians were only awaiting a rup- 
ture between the French and English to renew 
and repeat their former scenes and acts of atrocity . 

The day of blood came only too soon. In 
1744 it was heralded throughout the colonies 
that England and France had again commenced 
hostilities. This intelligence no sooner crossed 
the Atlantic than the frontiers of the colonies 
became again the area of conflicts, and at once 
the blood-thirsty savage, encouraged by the 
French, took up his hatchet. Before the procla- 
mation of war had become known in Boston the 



46 The Fall of Louisburg. 

French governor of Cape Breton sent a party to 
take Canso. This was effected and the captives 
were taken to Louisburg. 

And now began horrible scenes of renewed 
outrages by the Indians, inspired by the French 
in Canada and Cape Breton, and now became 
apparent how dangerous to the colonists were 
their late intimacy and commercial relations 
with the Indians. They, taking advantage of 
their knowledge of the roads connecting the set- 
tlements and trading points and the routes from 
Canada to the various settlements of the English, 
used heretofore for business intercourse, were 
enabled to make their vengeful warfare and their 
acts of carnage and plunder more savage and 
harmful than ever before. 

But with quick foresight, upon the very first 
intimation of war, the colonists, fast as possible, 
built new forts in exposed parts of the country, 
and western regiments of militia in Massachu- 
setts were called on for their quota of men to de- 
fend the frontiers. In 1745 the Indians began 
their operations with great activity, but on every 
hand they were met by our bold ancestors with 
unflinching courage, heroism and resolution, and 
they were afforded but little gratification to 
their malignity. 



The Fall of Louisburg. 47 

But now, assailed as they were by French 
and Indians, the colonists made a survey of the 
enemy's resources and began to locate their most 
threatening strongholds, and finally their eyes 
were fixed on one great enterprise, and that was 
the reduction of Louisburg, where the enemy 
could so conveniently stand sheltered and threat- 
en all their interests and their lives. This city 
had become a place of incredible strength and 
was a constant menace. The town was about 
two and one-half miles in circumference and stood 
upon a neck on the south side of the harbor, a 
beautiful, land-locked basin, with an entrance 
half a mile wide. It was fortified by a wall from 
thirty to thirtj^-six feet high, with a ditch eighty 
feet broad. The main works mounted sixty-five 
heavy cannon and sixteen mortars, while on 
Goat Island, at the entrance to the harbor, was 
a battery of thirty guns, and at the bottom of 
the harbor, opposite the entrance, was another 
called the royal battery, which also mounted 
thirty guns. These fortifications had been thirty 
years in building, had cost $5,000,000 and were 
defended by a garrison of 1,600 men. They were 
thought by the French to be impregnable. 

The New England colonists determined to 
take this fortress, which was a safe shelter to 



48 The Fall of Louisburg. 

the French privateers which menaced their fish- 
eries and, indeed, all their interests. Accordingly 
4,000 troops were raised from the several colon- 
ies so far as Pennsylvania, but chiefly froin Mas- 
sachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire, 
and the command was assigned to William Pep- 
perell, a merchant of Kittery, Me., who had been 
unequalled in his influence in securing volunteers, 
and by the 4th of April the expedition had ar- 
rived at Canso. Here they w^ere detained three 
weeks by the ice that made the passage very 
perilous. 

At length Commodore Warren, under orders 
from England, arrived at Canso in a ship of sixty 
guns and with three other ships of forty guns 
each. After consultation with Pepperell the Com- 
modore proceeded to cruise before Louisburg. 
Soon after. General Pepperell embarked in 100 
New England vessels and on the 30th of April 
effected a landing near Louisburg with his troops, 
taking the garrison by suprise. A portion of his 
troops, under Vaughan, he dispatched to the 
northeastern part of the harbor, and whilst the 
garrison were vainly fighting to prevent the 
landing of troops, and, routed, were driven into 
the city. Col. Vaughan pushed forward, captured 
the warehouses containing naval stores, and 



The Fall of Louisbursr. 49 



es 



gave them to the flames. Blinded by the smoke 
driven by the wind into the grand battery, the 
French garrison became bewildered and terrified, 
and thinking the whole invading army was close 
upon them, they hurriedly spiked their guns and 
abandoning the battery, retreated into the city. 

It was now dark. Early in the morning Col- 
onel Vaughan advanced his New Hampshire men 
and took possession of the deserted battery, and 
successfully beat off the French force that at- 
tempted to recover it. 

This first successful movement gave the col- 
onists a foothold and greatly strengthened their 
courage, and Pepperell at once laid seige to the 
tovk^n. 

Maj. Seth Pomeroy, who was a gunsmith, 
with twenty other smiths, succeeded in drilling 
out the captured cannon and they were turned 
upon the city. 

For fourteen successive nights the determined 
troops with extreme difiicultj'- dragged their can- 
non from the landing place, through morass and 
mire, to their camp. Oxen and horses were alike 
useless for this herculean task, but the men them- 
selves, by means of ropes and straps thrown 
over their shoulders, dragged the heavy guns 
foot by foot, sinking to their knees in the mud 



50 The Fall of Louishurg. 

and slush. Meantime, the cannon of the cap- 
tured battery, joined the heavy guns of the Eng- 
Hsh ships in bombarding the doomed city. 

On the 7th of May, Pepperell sent a summons 
to Duchambon,the commanding officer of Louis- 
burg, demanding the surrender of the cit^"", but 
he refused to lower his colors. Again the seige 
was renewed with added vigor, the army and 
navy joining in continuous charges and cannon- 
ading, the fleet bombarding the town and its 
fortifications and the army constantly harrassing 
ever^^ assailable point. 

On the 18th of May a large French man-of- 
war, laden with much needed military stores for 
the army and bearing reinforcements, w^as inter- 
cepted and captured by the English fleet. Dis- 
heartened by this disaster and alarmed by the 
erection of a battery on Lighthouse Cliff, which 
commanded Goat Island, and when the New" 
England batteries had approached to within 
600 feet of the walls, a breach effected and all 
was in readiness for an assault, the command- 
ant of Louisburg on the forty-ninth day of the 
seige, after 9,000 cannon balls and 600 shells 
had been thrown into the place, surrendered. 
Proud Louisburg was reduced, and on the 17th 
day of June, 1745, Pepperell marched in with his 



The Fall of Louisburg. 51 

gallant men and to the drum-beat of victory! 

The success of this expedition against Louis- 
burg has been considered one of the most strik- 
ing events in American warfare. It estabhshed 
the New England character for daring and enter- 
prising spirit and it soon became equallj^ the 
boast and the fear of Britain. The mother was 
proud of her children, but the daring and prowess 
that effected such an achievement might one day 
be arraigned against the integrity of the British 
empire in America! 

The achievement called forth great rejoicing 
in New England, New York and Philadelphia, 
and its influence was felt thirty years later at 
the beginning of the revolutionary war. Colonel 
Gridley, who planned Pepperell's batteries, laid 
out the American entrenchments at Bunker HilL 
The same old drums that beat on the triumphal 
entrance of the New Englanders into Louisburg, 
June 17, 1745, beat at Bunker Hill June 17, 1775! 
And when General Gage was erecting breast- 
works on Boston neck ''the provincial troops 
sneeringly remarked that his mud walls were 
nothing compared with the stone walls of Louis- 
burg ! ' ' 

In England the news of the surrender of 
Louisburg was received with bonfires and ilium- 



52 The Fall of Louishurg. 

inations, in London and other cities. The ex- 
ploit was on all hands declared to be unequalled, 
and an equivalent for all the successes of the 
French on the continent. 

Nevertheless, by the peace of Aix la Chapelle 
in 1748, but three j^ears later, Louisburg was 
restored to France, much to the grief and morti- 
fication of New England. 

In 1758 the town was again beseiged by the 
English and once more fell. It was left almost 
a heap of ruins. The inhabitants w^ere trans- 
ported to France in English ships and the great 
fortifications were completeh^ demolished. To- 
day it is the home of a few hundred fishermen, 
and barely important enough to be afforded a 
a dot on the luap of Nova Scotia! But it is of 
importance as having been the theater of great 
and heroic deeds which have been factors in 
moulding great and heroic characters. As the 
events of the reduction of Louisburg had much 
to do in uplifting and strengthening the New 
England character, so was the noble career of 
the brave General in command, one of the most 
potent for good known to our history. The 
greater names of Washington and some of the 
revolutionary generals have eclipsed that of Pep- 
perell, but it should not be forgotten that he did 



The Fall of Louisburg. 53 

more than any other man to prepare the army 
that was afterward to achieve American inde- 
pendence. 

But no event in history and no actor in its 
theater continues for any length of time to com- 
mand the approval of mankind unless through 
them civilization has been advanced and general 
welfare promoted. 

The stirring events of the colonial wars begat 
a noble race of hardj" patriots, whose sons revo- 
lutionized the world. 

To the strong, courageous, upright men of 
the colonial wars and to their sons of the revo- 
lution our country and the world owe a debt of 
gratitude that can never be liquidated. 

Behind all those things which have made 
ours the greatest country in the world, and of 
which we are justly proud — those natural advan- 
tages that have contributed so much to our 
prosperity, the political and social equality en- 
joyed by our people and having so much to do 
in forming our national characteristics and stim- 
ulating energy — behind all these and, in my 
judgment, the most potential force in our na- 
tional life, is the character of the people who 
first settled the colonies, fought their battles, de- 
clared for political freedom, achieved the revolu- 



54 The Fall of Louishurg. 

tion, framed our government and who have been 
thus far prepotent in making homogeneous the 
mighty streams of immigration that have for 
years poured into our countr3^ They were men 
of sterUng worth; and so long as the same intelU- 
gent, patriotic and conservative force remains 
dominant our national safety and greatness are 
assured ! 

I have a vision full of hope! The spirit of the 
fathers shall animate the children, and our hardy 
old colonial sires shall live and work again in 
them. Our country has a future glorious and 
enduring ! 

Let us refresh ourselves, gentlemen, those of 
us who stand nearer to the past, with that vision 
of the future which develops from the dreamland 
of the past and at which the heart takes courage 
again. 

Come, young man, in your strength, high 
resolves and clear conscience; come, maiden, ear- 
nest and good; come, take the tiller and steer us 
where we elders can see the brightness in the 
skies, the shining of the years that are to follow! 



RIGHT REVEREND 

WILLIAM STEVENS PERRY. 

A Memorial Address By Judson Keith Deming. 

(WILLIAM STEVEN.S PERRY, BORN IN PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND, 

JANUARY 22, 1832; died in dubuque, iowa, may 13, 1898; 

BISHOP OF IOWA, CHURCHMAN, PATRIOT, FRIEND.) 



A HUMAN life is like a vStringed instrument, 
through which the soul gives evidence to 
the world. The instrument itself may perish, 
but the voice of the soul vibrates on and on for- 
ever. Some lives are discordant, others harmon- 
ious. Some strike but one chord, others abound 
in pleasing tones. 

Bishop Perry's life was filled with the melo- 
dy of love for his fellowmen, and the sonorous 
harmonies of devotion to the cause of Christ's 
kingdom upon earth. His guileless nature and 
the purity of his character exemplified in a high 
degree those virtues which it was his office to 
teach. All men who knew him, whatever may 
have been their difference in creed, in politics or 
in social preference, united in genuine affection 
for this good man, so courteous, so kind, so 



56 William Stevens Perry. 

gentle, so forgiving to all. With steadfast cour- 
age, he lived up to his early religious convictions, 
and like a true soldier fought the battles of his 
faith under the banner of his adoption. In the 
great war against evil he recognized the friendly 
allies of other creeds, but it was his glory to 
carr\'' the guidon of his church in the forefront, 
struggling bravely for the post of honor. He 
was a student every hour of his life from boy- 
hood to the time of his death, searching, contin- 
ually searching, for new developments of the 
great truths of sacred and profane history, and 
he gave to the world, in many contributions 
to its literature, the fruits of his profound learn- 
ing. 

One of the most beautiful traits of his charac- 
ter, one of the greatest harmonies of his life, 
was his fidelity to his country, his deep and 
patriotic love for its history and its honor. His 
companions in those patriotic organizations of 
which he was an honored member, are living 
witnesses of his loyaltj^ to America, to America's 
record in the past, and America's hopes for the 
future. One of the last great acts of his life was 
to stand at the altar and offer up thanksgiving 
to Almighty God for the victory of the American 
nav3^ under Commodore Dewey in Manila Bay. 



William Stevens Perry. 57 

The last sermon that he preached was upon the 
blessings of peace won by the victories of a right- 
eous cause. He prayed that his country might 
not be led astray, but that the war in which it 
was engaged might be recorded upon the pages 
of history as a struggle for the maintenance of 
the American principle of justice and higher 
civilization. A laudable pride in his illustrious 
ancestry awakened an early interest in the or- 
ganization of the "Society of Colonial Wars," 
and he became one of the founders and an officer 
of the Society in Iowa. 

Of Bishop Perry's life among us as a citizen 
of Iowa, it may be said that he accepted and re- 
ciprocated the friendship which was offered to 
him. He did not thrust himself upon men, but 
received them v^<^ith a warmth of cordiality and 
affection which showed the boundlessness of his 
love. Those who failed to enjoy his companion- 
ship have lost a fair possession — it was theirs for 
the mere asking. No man left his presence with- 
out an oj)portunity to share his life with him, to 
be a part of his calm, peaceful nature; to be a 
dweller in his great heart. Towards those who 
hurt him, he remained dignified and patient, 
wraiting for the time when his forgiving spirit 
might win its reward in vindication and recon- 



58 William Stevens Perry. 

cilement. While memory lasts the influence of his 
sweet nature will adorn the characters of those 
whom it touched, and so of him it may truly be 
said: "Though dead he yet liveth." 



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